The ABS-CBN News Channel was originally established in 1996 as the Sarimanok News Network or SNN. SNN was the brainchild of the late
Eugenio Lopez, Jr. who envisioned a 24-hour television network that would become the primary source of news and information for Filipinos. On May 1, 1996, SNN was first offered on
Sky Cable. Back then the channel served the viewers through two major news programs,
Dateline Philippines and
Primetime News, while short news advisories aired throughout the day. On March 7, 1998, SNN also covered the
Metropolitan Basketball Association games until the merger with Sky Cable's news division. To enhance its resources and strengthen its position as the primary news channel for the Filipinos, SNN in 1998 merged with Sky News, another Lopez-owned cable news channel that specialized in business news. The merger of the two networks paved the way for the formation of the country's first 24-hour news channel offering the latest in local and foreign news, business information, sports, weather updates and lifestyle. On October 11, 1999, the network changed its name to ABS-CBN News Channel or ANC. In the years that followed, ANC established its name through its coverage of key events in the Philippines including the impeachment trial of
Joseph Estrada, the
Sipadan hostage crisis, the
Oakwood mutiny, and
EDSA Dos and
Tres. ANC and ABS-CBN was also the first to reveal the Joseph Estrada's "brown envelope" controversy,
Corazon Aquino's death, the
Maguindanao massacre, and
Hubert Webb's acquittal. In November 2011, ANC, together with
ABS-CBNnews.com and YouTube brought the YouTube World View event to the Philippines with an exclusive and one-on-one interview with the Philippine President
Benigno Aquino III in
Malacañang Palace. The questions were submitted and voted by YouTube users from all over the world. On July 18, 2013, ANC announced a partnership with
Yahoo!, which saw the introduction of a Yahoo! portal featuring content from ANC (which will remain separate from the main ABS-CBN News website), and would also allow ANC content to be featured on
Yahoo! News Philippines. The partnership marks Yahoo's first partnership with a television news outlet outside of the United States, where Yahoo! has recently established a similar content partnership with
ABC News. This joint-venture website was discontinued after it was revealed that Yahoo Philippines was discontinued in June 2015 (and thus redirecting the website to the Singaporean edition of Yahoo including the Malaysian edition) as an initiative to streamline "internal workflows" and currently redirects users to the ABS-CBNnews.com website. Before that partnership with Yahoo, the channel had its own dedicated website, ANCnews.tv until 2013. In the early part of 2015, ANC has begun using English subtitles for the Tagalog soundbytes on newscasts and public affairs programs from
ABS-CBN. On October 26, 2015, ANC went into a major overhaul in its broadcast design, including the refurbished rhombus logo and the red-blue schemed new title cards for the channel's major newscasts. As part of the relaunch, ANC opened a new studio in 8 Rockwell in Rockwell Center in Makati, aside from their studio and newsroom in Quezon City. The Rockwell studio is used by programs such as
Mornings @ ANC,
Headstart with Karen Davila and
#NoFilter a political program hosted by
Teodoro Locsin Jr. and Professor Prospero de Vera of
University of the Philippines. ANC also launched the new programming grid for weekdays which include the relaunch of
Mornings @ ANC, the sports news program
The Daily Serve hosted by
Gretchen Ho and business program
The Boss hosted by
Cathy Yap-Yang. On May 25, 2016, British billionaire and philanthropist Sir
Richard Branson of
Virgin Group headlined the first Asian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum, an ANC Leadership Series, the main event of the station's 20th anniversary. The production of the ANC's Sunday news programs was halted on March 22, 2020, due to the implementation of
enhanced community quarantine to help control the spread of the
COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines. Furthermore, with the network
shutting down operations due to the expiration of its legislative franchise and in compliance with the
NTC's
cease and desist order, the current status of the newscast remained unknown until it was eventually cancelled & franchise denial last July 10, 2020, citing numerous violations. It was then replaced by provisional programming on the same date. After the timesharing arrangement between DZMM TeleRadyo and ANC ended on April 26, 2020, ANC's Sunday newscasts were discontinued. This was followed by the cancellation of Saturday broadcasts on November 30, 2024. On April 1, 2020,
DZMM Radyo Patrol 630 and
DZMM TeleRadyo has switched to simultaneous telecast with ANC starting at 10:00 p.m.; which evolved from its timesharing with the DZMM since March 19. With this move, DZMM and DZMM TeleRadyo, as well as the provincial regional AM radio station, become English-only (for the first time in history after many years) as a provisional measure. This programming scheme ended on April 20. However, it was retained until May 15 from 11:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. Prior to the discontinuation of
TeleRadyo on June 30, 2023, it was resumed in 2021 from 10:00 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. of the following day. From October 31, 2020, the channel has switched to simultaneous telecast with
TeleRadyo due to the coverage of
Typhoon Rolly and
Typhoon Ulysses. It was relived on November 9, 2025 during
Typhoon Uwan.
ANC Prestige on YouTube On February 13, ANC launched
ANC Prestige, a monthly subscription plan on the ANC 24/7 YouTube channel allowing domestic viewers to access the channel's programming seen on pay television, as well as additional benefits for active subscribers. The launch came as a supposed alternative option for cable subscribers, as ABS-CBN announced previously on January 29 that ANC would have continued its operations in anticipation of Sky Cable's scheduled closure by February 26, 2024. The planned buyout of Sky Cable to
PLDT would eventually be terminated on February 22, with the former continuing its pay television operations; although ANC Prestige would continue regardless of the transaction's cancellation. ==Programming==